A Quiet Man
by Silberias
Summary: He of course never expected to live from his injury. But he had, and that sort of debt is one that will never be fully, properly, and rightly repaid.
1. Chapter 1

Because I stayed up all night and watched all of it. And I ship Kyuzo/Kirara like burning and there are two fics here for them. So what do you do when you don't have fic for your ship? You write some damn fanfic.

Enjoy!

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He had thought that he would die from the gunshot. Kyuzo understood death and did not fight it when it came for him. Perhaps it was this humbleness that had spared him. And perhaps also the soft hands that were changing the bandages. His skin was sticky from fever, but he did not suffer from it any longer. He did not open his eyes, instead sensing who was around him rather than give away his return to consciousness. His palm itched for the sheath of his sword.

"You don't have to pretend to be asleep, Kyuzo-dono," the priestess's soft voice intoned. He did not play coy after that, instead opening his eyes to look into hers. He could see why the spoiled merchant's son wanted her. He could see why she did not fall victim to the promises of comfort and riches for the price of her body and obedience.

She was under a greater vow of obedience, and such vows must be fulfilled and honored before all others. He had followed her to this village in order to fulfill his own vow to eventually claim Kambei's life, and nothing in his life would ever take greater importance than that vow. At least, that he'd so far run into.

"The people of Kanna believe us to be lovers," she said, gently checking on the tightness of his bandages. He knew himself to be embarrassingly weak and did not try to move. He could wait another day to try to feed himself. If the priestess decided to help him that was on her own conscience and he would not depend on it.

He watched the blush deepen on her cheeks as he let the silence linger. Kyuzo stared at her, willing her to understand the quiet. Almost all who crossed his path did not know or love stillness. Stillness was the opposite of motion. Chaos was motion, control was stillness. Samurai, vows, and silence were still.

She stayed at his side nursing him, which meant she had not bowed to the rumors to allow another to care for him. She must have vowed to save his life, and some vows carried greater obedience than others. Oathbreakers spoke of it as sacrifice and looked at in the light of pain.

"Such shame is removed through marriage," he said, sliding his eyes away from her face to her hands. Her fingers began to tremble, and no words passed her lips. His eyes flicked back to hers, "Am I mistaken?" her hands clenched and the shaking stopped.

"You are not mistaken, Kyuzo-dono."

"Then I offer myself as husband, and if I will not suit then I will find a man to remove the shame I have brought on you."

Her face cracked into a smile. Wry, but like unrippled water.

"You would have to search far afield to find a man willing to live in this town for a wife like me." Kyuzo looked at the ceiling after these words, letting them settle. The quiet always gave him answers when he required them. She would get used to it—she was a water priestess after all, and water was silent. He breathed deeply, letting his eyes sink half-closed. She had left his offer unanswered and therefore rejected. He did not take offense.

"You are skilled and kind. Your face is pleasing as well. It will not be difficult to find such a man."

"Your words do not match your intention, Kyuzo-dono," her voice was teasing, though still soft. "You offer to find me one who would appreciate my kindness and skills and finds me beautiful. You do not need to look far. Close your eyes," he obeyed her and listened to her shuffling movements as she dragged a basket nearer to herself and lifted something out. She shifted to kneel a little closer to his side.

"The first face you first look on will be of the man you must bring to me for my wedding day," she said and he could hear the smile in her voice. "Open your eyes, Kyuzo-dono." Mirrors were precious to those outside of the noble classes, this one must have been in her family for generations. He looked pale, and there were bags under his eyes. The reflection he stared at was of a man who had been wrenched from the jaws of death. He'd seen enough and understood her point. His eyes slipped shut.

"If that man's face is what you desire to wake to each day, I will see it done when I am strong enough." He did not tense up when one of her hands fell to his belly. Her hands were cool, and he told his body to relax towards sleep. The vow to claim Kambei's life still stood, but his debt to the priestess was of a life as well. It was more difficult than he liked—_blood loss_—but he raised a hand to cover hers. She would continue his line and he would teach their sons to speak in silence and move with purpose. He knew nothing of daughters and would leave them to her.

"I had never thought I would marry for affection," she said as he was almost asleep. Kyuzo glared at her through narrowed eyes. She would hopefully understand his value of silence sooner than later or he would have to spend much more of his time training villagers to be violent than he'd ever anticipated. She did not move her hand from his skin, though, and that was welcome.

"Do priestesses in your village not marry for such things?" She was determined to be awake and so he would indulge her. He would know his future wife better since he had the chance. She turned her hand over and grasped his fingers.

"Not often. When a priestess reaches the age of nineteen she dowses with her crystal for her husband. It leads her to the man and he marries her as soon as possible. It is rare out here in the country that tradition is gone against."

"The people of your village do not seem to pay mind to traditions. I feel at home here more than I have in any other place."

She stayed quiet, trying to use it to dissolve mystery as he did. Her skin had long ago warmed to his and he could feel her pulse in her fingertips. There was no time to explain the hierarchies of duty to her. He had spent a lifetime doing so, and she had already lived a quarter of hers. She was fifteen years behind him on the path—but she was intelligent. He was confident she would find her way.

"You follow your path despite when it meanders. Just as we have begun to."

Kyuzo shut his eyes and squeezed her fingers briefly to acknowledge her correct answer.

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	2. Chapter 2

Eh. There wasn't any fic for this ship, so I made some fic for this ship. It's how I roll. Also, Samurai 7 is terribly tragic and all.

Enjoy!

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If he had not nearly died he would have struggled to stand as soon as he could. But his life was a gift from the priestess. His priestess. He rested, then, and obeyed her when she urged him to sit up or sit back. Kyuzo ate the food she prepared for him without comment and drank the water she left at his side. She blushed when she helped him to the outhouse but she did not babble about it. Just as she did not chitter to him how they had gotten his body to her, or how she had realized he still had a breath of life in him. It mattered little.

"Will you read to me?" She disliked the amount of silence he typically desired, and he disliked humming. It was an easy enough solution to keep her from it. Especially since he was not strong enough to sit up for long periods of time to read by himself. Her voice was pleasant when reading aloud, and she had a large collection of writings. Despite living in a remote village such as this one, his children would grow up as well read as a samurai raised in a manor city.

"What would you like?"

He didn't answer because he did not care. She had so far picked things he did not mind hearing, and he trusted her to continue to do so. He breathed deeply, shutting his eyes and letting his brows knit together for just a moment. Every muscle in his body was losing strength and definition even as his flesh mended together around his wounds.

Kirara knelt at his side once more, having left to get a scroll. He didn't wait long before reaching a hand out and laying it on her knee. She would make a fine wife. For the first time in a long time, he looked forward to being obedient to another.

"I will stand up and go for a walk tomorrow. Please begin whatever plans you need to."

"As you wish." She read to him for the rest of the afternoon.

He walked with her every day carrying all of his weapons. Even as he was winded every time, Kyuzo carried on and gently refused her aid. Her preferred routes took her to calm inlets along the river where she would stand in the water that lapped at her knees. She was a lovely woman and she did not deserve him as a husband. She needed a man who did not love silence, who would tell her of her loveliness each day.

Her smiles to him however were undimmed. She either did not know this or did not care. In fact she seemed of the opinion that he was worthy of her—at least he had seen no woman who fell asleep with such trust on a man's shoulder. The villagers gave him a wide berth when visiting the house, and he was fair to them by keeping well to the side. There was still danger in the world, and he would protect them and their village as he was able. He did not owe them more.

On their wedding day she wore red and left her hair loose. She had trimmed _his_ hair the day before and after he returned from washing it she had let him rest his head on her thigh. The woman's fingers had threaded the strands again and again until his hair was teased out to his normal style. He had spent most of the afternoon dozing on and off. There had been no room for love and affection in his life, but this had seemed like love. If just a quiet kind.

Her robes had fallen away that evening after he had stripped his own body of clothing. They were bare before one another and he had knelt in front of her with hands on her hips as he looked up into her face. She had red eyes, almost the same shade as his own, and she looked down at him steadily. He kissed her slowly and softly so that he didn't make a single sound, but her breathing was loud in the quiet of their room as they held one another's gaze. This quiet space had been their room since he'd regained consciousness, but for the first time they were together in it as a woman and a man.

First he kissed her thighs and then tilted his head up to kiss just below her navel. His lips trailed, barely there, over the short, wiry hairs of her sex. She bit her lip but didn't shy away when he pressed another kiss there. He would show her pleasure—make her body sing like his swords sang. This woman, this Kirara, wanted him as her husband and that was not only a duty but a quest.

It took a gentle tug to get her to kneel with him, and not much more to urge her to lay back and bring her legs around so her knees framed his hips. Every movement met a bit of slight resistance as she allowed nerves to take over. Asking her to relax would not work, and so he let his silence speak for him. It was the silence that showed who he was, ultimately. She was not marrying a man brought to her by the water spirits. She was marrying a man she had stolen from death. He was no village man, guilted into marriage by the whims of ghosts and tradition. His marriage to her belonged to her—not the spirits.

"Katsushiro-dono kissed me—and—and—I wanted to kiss Kambei-dono," she whispered, terror lacing her tone. Kyuzo kissed down her neck, arm snaking below her and pressing his weight against her. He stopped moving then. Her heartbeat slowed and she grew calm. Stillness always revealed the solutions to mysteries and made things clear. Kirara was a smart woman and he did not doubt her ability to slow down enough to see the answers she sought from him.

"But I _didn't_ kiss them. It's you I will kiss now." She owed nothing to those other samurai now. They had been paid as promised and had sent themselves away, but she had made marriage vows to _him_. It was enough, and he turned his face to kiss the side of her neck. From there he slid his mouth up to hers, kissing her while he taught her hips what to do. It was a gentle rhythm he set, and she managed to not weep when he finally joined their bodies. She only bit her lip and clung to his shoulders. For a man who valued silence he found he deeply enjoyed the sounds their bodies made as they met one another.

When she cried out and clenched around him it took him by surprise and he choked on air. He was close, but she'd been closer. He laughed in her ear and continued thrusting deeply while he dimly realized that he was chanting his wife's name between every snatched breath. She was sighing out his own name trying to keep up with his pace until he lost it. His control, his pace, his everything.

"My sweet wife," he murmured in her ear, rolling them to the side. Her legs were still wrapped around his hips, keeping them joined as close as possible. Her nose rested on his Adam's Apple, and each breath feathered gently on his throat. It didn't seem like the most comfortable resting place, but she did not seem to mind and it was _her_ resting place after all.

"My husband. My samurai."

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